Dragon boat race in aid of Prostaid has returned to Leicester this year better than ever, after a few years hiatus! Us at NewWave Events partnered with Rob, the manager and trustee of Prostaid, to bring this event back to life on 2nd June.
Prostaid care for local people living with prostate cancer. They are a voluntary team made up principally of prostate cancer sufferers, their family and friends and members of the University of Leicester Hospitals Urological team. It was a delight to support Prostaid at the Leicester dragon boat race.
“We provide five Support groups throughout our area, to give support to local men newly diagnosed and treated and to patients with advanced prostate cancer. We fund new innovative treatments, tests and equipment. We at PROSTaid are a local Charity formed in 2006 with a positive attitude to prostate cancer and our aim is still to continue to improve treatments and save lives!” – Find out more about the work Prostaid do here https://prostaid.co.uk/.
It was a beautifully sunny morning for the riverside festival in Leicester. Food stalls, drinks stations, gift stands were all setting up in the picturesque Castle Gardens, getting ready for the popular annual Leicester Riverside Festival to begin – this year with the addition of the exciting dragon boat race! Although spectators weren’t allowed access to the park yet, they were lining up getting their seats ready to watch a day of thrilling races, with the colourful boats and competitive spirits making for it to be a great day ahead!
This dragon boat race was a day of complete novice crews, making the competition even more exciting with all crews having to work out their technique and tactics as the racing happened! After round 1 it was Sea Ton United leading the way with a time of 60.47 seconds. We usually say that a time around 60 seconds is a great time, so Sea Ton United were in for a winner here with that as their first time of the day! Round 2 of the dragon boat race came and went with some major improvements with five out of the nine teams now hitting sub-60 times!! Weafer Warriors came from no-where and stole the top spot away from Sea Ton United with a whopping round 2 time of 53.46 seconds. With music and commentary booming around the city, more and more crowds formed along the bridge and the length of the river to watch the excitement and cheer the participants on.
After all teams had completed their second race of the day, all teams gathered around the NewWave Events gazebo for the results to find out who had made it into the semi-finals of today’s dragon boat race. The four teams advancing through to the semi-finals were Highfield Rangers, Sea Ton United, Weafer Warriors and Hawaii Wine-hoes (the only completely female crew of the day!). Whereas the way to get through to the semi-finals was by having the fastest times of the day, the only way to get through to the final was to win the semi-final. With only 2 teams advancing through to the final, the only way in was to win! The first two semi-finalists got kitted out in the boat marshalling area and headed down to the pontoons. It was Weafer Warriors vs Hawaii Wine-hoes battling it out in semi-final 1 with Sea Ton United and Highfield Rangers in semi-final 2. It was a clear win from Weafer Warriors in semi-final 1, however a photo finish in semi-final 2! Tensions were high as the results and times were announced. It was Highfield Rangers that just pipped it at the post, making their way into the grand final against Weafer Warriors to finish off the day!
Last race of today’s dragon boat race and our helms were raring to go for this grand final, teams loaded the boats and made their way up to the start line. Highfield Rangers against Weafer Warriors. Another photo finish!!! There was less than a second in it… but Highfield Rangers just scraped the win!! Shrieks of joy, sprays of bubbly and lots of clapping and cheering finished off what was an outstanding day of paddling, sunshine and fundraising.
